Miranda's Demons

by Ian Miller

  Without doubt, he had made a mess of his life. He had always been an idealist, a dreamer. He had belonged to that ancient school of thought that believed if he worked hard and was strictly honest, he would prosper. In short he was a hopeless conservative. His family had lived about halfway between Coeur d'Alene and Sandpoint, Idaho, and while these towns were conservative, even by the standards of the conservative Idaho, the Baxters viewed them as hotbeds of radicalism. At school, back on the beautiful planet Earth, he was considered to be a fool, albeit an intelligent fool. Yet he had done his duty as every good citizen should; as soon as he finished his education he joined FoodBund, where he had worked hard and honestly. He was a total disaster. He avoided the pilfering, the black-market, the scams, and everybody avoided him as if he had plague. Once the word got around that he was not going anywhere in life, the girls avoided him. His supervisors avoided him, and more to the point, they gave him the minimum adequate report. Whatever else happened, they were not going to promote him, to give him a chance to disturb their system.

  He never recognized the problem; he thought the corporations could make more profit if the inefficiencies were removed. He had sent several memoranda, and many of them were acted on. In principle, he had saved FoodBund considerable money, and not once had he criticized any person, at least not overtly. Still his reports were barely adequate. For FoodBund did not care about profit. There was no point in making more money; there was nothing to do with it. They could not expand their business, because people would only eat so much, and efforts were being made to reduce the overall population. They could not enter a new area of business without declaring war on another corporation.

  What did concern them was power. The ability to supply food, or more to the point, the ability to withhold certain items of food gave the corporate bosses immense power. It also gave the junior staff perks. For when the great chiefs declared that certain items could not be supplied until certain politicians carried out a number of favourable actions, junior staff could do quite well by supplying privileged people. What Baxter had not realized was that this petty corruption suited the FoodBund bosses. For if they carried out their threats totally and efficiently, there would be an enormous backlash; if, on the other hand, there was an illegal supply, with back-handers to the bosses, the influential people could get their supplies. The fact they were illegal, they cost considerably more, and they could only be obtained through unusual channels added to the spice of achieving them. This was reason to throw a party, not to complain. This pilfering did not even cost FoodBund; wages were so low that staff could only afford to work there and raise a family if they supplemented their income by supplying delicacies. The fact that the very extraordinary delicacies could only be obtained through FoodBund staff meant that girls would flock around the FoodBund uniform. But not to Baxter's.

  Then at last came Baxter's moment. After being relegated to clerical duties in the seediest of New Jersey's distribution centres, he had become aware of perhaps the most evil act he could imagine. He found documents that convincingly proved certain senior FoodBund staff were buying synthetic fats from chemical by-products, intending to blend them in with food grade material for sale in selected slum areas, where the population would be too poor to either analyse the food or to launch proper proceedings. Cheap, bland, smooth, but liver destroyers. At first Baxter became excited, and he copied everything he could find. Then he became depressed. What could he do?

  He could go to the chiefs of FoodBund, where he would be rewarded for his efforts, provided he stayed silent. Implied extortion was accepted throughout the corporations as a check for sloppiness. It was better to pay an enterprising employee what was, to the corporation, a small sum rather than have to face the Justice system. It was the price of faulty security. Baxter would have his somewhat irregular route to prosperity, as long as he was no threat. If he looked like a threat, he would be killed. Baxter had enough sense to realize that he would always be considered a threat, and he had far too much moral outrage to even consider this course for over two seconds. It was then he found his solution: a rising star in Justice, named Elizabeth Garrett.

  Elizabeth Garrett was an enigma. Most senior Justice staff approached the corporations from time to time, threatening a prosecution, because Justice staff would collect personally a small per centage of resultant fines. Corporation fines tended to be huge, and if there was a reasonable case, it was felt many corporations would prefer to pay a useful sum to have the case dropped and the evidence destroyed. Generally speaking, these exercises were bruising encounters, with the Justice staff member retreating in despair. Not so Elizabeth Garrett. She had made no more than six approaches to the corporations, and she had made six deals. Thirty million fecus had been deposited with Justice, and the offences had ceased. She had accepted no back-handers, and she could not be intimidated. She had earned the grudging respect of the corporate chiefs because she was doing her job and doing it well. The deals she did would exceed the fines a court would impose, but they were prepared to pay because it saved the publicity. Garrett never sought the publicity and never sought personal bribes.

  Baxter had taken his evidence to Garrett. Garrett had impassively read the evidence, read Baxter's file, asked some questions, then asked him why he was doing it. Justice, he had answered. She had nodded without enthusiasm, but set up an appointment with the chiefs of FoodBund. She had seemed almost dismayed when Baxter had accepted her invitation to attend.

  The meeting was quick. After glancing at the evidence, the FoodBund Chairman asked Garrett what she intended.

  "You will pay a fine of forty million fecus and file acknowledgement of guilt, you will trace all offending food and destroy it, you will ensure proper quality control analyses are in place for the specified areas, you will open the file results to Justice inspection, and you will pay two million fecus for the purpose of protecting Baxter here."

  "No court would impose a fine of even twenty million," someone had growled.

  "Agreed," Garrett smiled. "But those areas where you intended to sell that crap house thirty million votes. I think some aspiring politician may take the opportunity for publicity to appeal for a torment. Remember, if you go to court, you're personally on trial. Now, do you wish me to lodge a court appearance?"

  There was no court appearance. Elizabeth had smiled at Baxter, and asked, "Satisfied?"

  "Those chiefs get off free," he had protested.

  "You know, their assessment of you was correct. You simply don't fit in. What do you want? A fine? Their corporation would pay. Blood? They haven't actually committed the crime yet, and in any case some junior, like yourself, would be the sacrificial goat. Why do you think they keep the likes of you on the payroll? Tell me, Baxter, why did you do this?"

  "To protect those people," Baxter had protested.

  "Then you have achieved that," Elizabeth had smiled. "By paying the fine and acknowledging guilt, if they try that again, there is an automatic torment. The men in that room will guarantee the quality of food to those citizens."

  "They must hate you," Baxter had said.

  "Oh no! They will keep me supplied in delicacies. But you are another matter. Given half a chance, you are dead. So, I shall have you trained, and you can join Justice as a junior enforcer. Then we'll send you somewhere out of their clutches."

  The only place out of their clutches had been Mars, and unfortunately for Baxter Mars had not been a significant improvement. Baxter had one thing almost nobody else had: he had a return ticket. Provided he kept up his muscle exercises he could, in principle, return to Earth, so he never made the commitment to Mars. Crime on Mars was extremely low, partly because everybody knew everybody else, but more because entry to most areas required security cards and frequently entrance through pressure systems in which every detail was recorded. As a consequence he had little to do, and to add to his problems, thanks to his reserved personality it seemed he could not mix with the settlers. All his life he had been alone,
yet it had not bothered him because with people around him there had always been the possibility that he could make a friend.

  Then came the M'starn. As soon as the reports came in from Chryse about the killing of Defence and Justice staff, those at Phoenicis Lacus quickly met and drew lots for which land-cruisers they could take, and which direction to go in. Baxter had drawn Argyre, in principle one of the safest. Yet nobody wished to travel with him. Because he was alone, loading his cruiser's share of supplies took longer, and with the M'starn coming there was no time to seek out someone. In any case, there was no woman he knew well enough to ask.

  Somehow his navigation was sufficiently adequate for him to find Argyre, and once there it was a relatively simple matter to find the dump. The Charitum Tholus was just south of the fifty-fifth parallel, and stood out from the plateau like a giant loaf of bread. He quickly found the dump and loaded what he could onto his land cruiser. He then drove around to the east of the Tholus and as he was halfway down the eastern face, to his amazement he saw tracks. He carefully followed these until he reached the shorter, southern face where he saw a small dump of carefully hidden mining equipment. Darkness was falling as he got into his pressure suit and exited through the airlock. While he took a light, he preferred not to use it, but rather he took advantage of the failing light to reconnoitre. What he found amazed him. While the camp was abandoned, someone had been tunnelling into the hill very recently. He went into the mine, and at the far end, there on the rock-face, silvery glimmers shined in his torchlight. He took a couple of rocks as souvenirs, then retreated. He fixed a tunnelling device and a trailer loaded with goods to his cruiser, then he set off, first following the marked tracks for three hours until he could find some rock on which to turn off without leaving tracks, and then to the south, carefully covering his tracks as best he could.

  His plan was simple. He would find a good north-facing hill in the Charitum Montes to the south of Argyre Planitia and excavate himself some caverns. He did this, and managed to return the mining equipment and strip the last of the goods from the Defence dump before the miners returned. But it had been while he was using the equipment that he had received his greatest shock. The equipment belonged to MinCorp. Not only were they on Mars, where they were not supposed to be, but they were operating on Mars.

  Weeks had passed, and once he had his hydroponics set up he found he had surprisingly little to do. He went out on little exploration sorties, in part in the ridiculous hope he could find company. Because all the tracks from the Charitum Tholus had gone to the northeast he explored to the west. Eventually he even set up an emergency food store in a natural cave in the Bosporus Rupes, and fitted it with a camouflaged entrance.

  It was on his return from this expedition that he noticed small amounts of dust rising from the south of the Charitum Tholus. He drove to the west face, concealed his vehicle, then he clambered up the side of the hill and crept across the top. As he approached the southern face he slowed down, crouched, and put the two rods into the rock that would allow his little direction finder to pick up sound through the rock. He then moved quickly but cautiously towards the centre of activity. When he reached the correct spot, he crept to the edge and leaned over. Below was the hum of activity that was clear evidence of an active if unlicensed mining venture. Not that, he thought wryly, he was in much of a position to question the legality of what was happening. Suddenly there was a flash of light, and several clouds of dust erupted into the air. There was frantic activity as all mining equipment was turned off, a small heap of rock waste with its tell-tale grey colour was covered with the more general red sand, and the whole group of grey-suited miners reassembled as if they were travellers. From the east, a small convoy was approaching.

  Baxter watched the scene with fascination. A small convoy drove up, stopped about fifty meters away from the miners, and two yellow-suited men eventually clambered out of the transporters and walked over to the miners. After a period of presumed conversation, it appeared there was tension between the parties: they tended to stand slightly further away from each other, and there was much gesticulating. Unfortunately, try as he would, Baxter could not find a frequency that would permit him to hear what they were saying. Eventually the two newcomers retreated to their vehicles, while the miners seemed uncertain of what to do next, although one did retreat to a transporter.

  Suddenly the visitors' transporters disgorged a number of yellow suits. All carried large weapons, the weapons flashed, and miners' bodies were flung aside. In panic, some of the miners tried to run, but it was futile. There was no cover, nowhere to go where these bullets could not reach. When struck, runners were flung aside like rag dolls, while Baxter could feel the blasts that missed their targets tearing into the rock below him. It was so quiet, so methodical, so deadly. Within twenty fearful seconds, all movement from the miners ceased. The executioners then began to search each of the vehicles, and after a brief period following the commencement of such a search, unsuited bodies would be thrown from the airlock hatch. Two miners emerged from one vehicle with weapons and began to return fire. Three of the newcomers were killed before their numbers and heavier weapons began to reassert their superiority. While this was going on, one of the miners' vehicles started up, and took off towards the west. Despite the fact that there was no noise, it did not go unnoticed, nor did it get far; heavy weapon fire ripped the side of the vehicle out, and it turned over, the giant parabolic dish on its roof pointing aimlessly at the setting sun. It was then that Baxter realized that dish had not been mounted when he had first arrived.

  The final attempt at resistance was more dramatic. The ground and the south face of the Tholus erupted in a tremendous explosion. Rocks came tumbling down towards the mine entrance, burying it, and much of the battle, under millions of tonnes of rock. Baxter was lucky to be some distance from the mine mouth, but even where he was the rock began to collapse. He felt the tremendous thump, and saw a crack form below his chest as rock in front of him first rose, then began to slide downward. He tried frantically to roll back from the face, and he almost succeeded. In desperation he flailed at the new lip of the face as the rock he was on slid downwards. His fingers caught, his feet kicked against something, he thought he would be able to hang on in the weaker gravity, but then his fingers began to slide as the smooth rock at the top offered insufficient grip, and he could not find anything to brace his feet against. He began to roll, then he stopped. Something was holding his back. Below him the rock slide had gathered momentum, and a huge dust cloud was erupting from below.

  He carefully looked around, and saw some jagged rock, pristine and grey. That would hold him. He lurched across, and felt a searing sound across his back. He then realized why he was held: one of his two air hoses was caught on a piece of rock. He had no idea which one, so he had to gingerly move his hands to turn both off at his suit and on his bottles. When that was done he braced himself as well as he could, flexed his muscles then lurched towards the rocks he could see.

  His arms flew out, and by some miracle his left hand grasped something. He was now hanging vertically on a new face by one hand and with no air but for that in his suit. He grasped upwards with his right hand, but there was nothing. He lifted his feet, and one foot managed to find a tiny ledge, so some of his weight could be spread. He looked around, and saw the rock face had almost the same appearance as a cheese pulled apart, except that the new edges were newly fragmented rock, sharp as any prehistoric knife, and he could not afford any cut to his suit. There were no other handholds, and no obvious way up other than to pull himself up by means of the handhold he had. Gingerly he brought his right hand across and grasped the rock. At first he felt apprehensive; it was stupid to commit everything to one rock. Probably a fractured oxidized rock! But, as he quickly realized, there was no choice. He could not remain where he was indefinitely, and the rock was hardly likely to get stronger. He decided. Now! He pulled as hard as he could, brought his feet up and tried to scrabble his way u
p the face. Somehow the rock held, somehow he managed to get around it without tearing his suit. He managed to get another handhold, he got his foot on the rock, and as he thrust down with his leg and pulled on his new handhold, his trusty rock gave way beneath his foot. But his other hand had found a fissure, and he was now on the smooth sandblasted rock, the slope was gentle, and he could pull, claw, crawl his way to security. He checked the hoses, threw away the defective hose, reconnected his air supply, replaced the defective hose with a spare he carried in his leg pocket, then he lay there, shaking, and blessing the lower Martian gravity.

  Then, after a few minutes, now secure, curiosity got the better of him, and he crept back to the edge and looked down. Fortunately nobody had looked up immediately following the explosion; they had been too concerned with avoiding the rocks. Baxter now had a choice. He could try to identify the newcomers, or he could go back to his vehicle. A glance at his oxygen pressure gauges made up his mind for him. One of his two cylinders had emptied when the hose was torn, the second cylinder had lost a lot of air trying to compensate for the pressure drop, and there was a very good chance he could not make it back to his vehicle. There was surprisingly little choice. He would have to go down and pick up at least one cylinder from one of the bodies.

  Fortunately it was getting darker, but it was not yet fully dark. He found a route by which he could descend most of the way in some safety, and with the failing light it was most unlikely he would be seen. He turned on the infrared vision enhancers, a feature only found on Defence suits, and made his way down the hill. The heat of the rocks would give him reasonable vision several hours into the night, and the other people would have bright signatures that could not be concealed.

  He continued to descend, slowly and carefully, until finally he reached a vertical face. He knew this was about twenty meters high, and he had adequate rope. He fixed a piton into the rock, attached the rope, then lowered himself down. Near the bottom, with his feet on a small ledge supporting his weight, he wound up the spare rope so that it was a good leap from the ground, he tied it into a loop and attached a dim glower, a device that emitted strong infrared but no visible light, then he dropped to the ground.